


Come, Thou Almighty!

by FKAHerSweetness



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Colonization, Crush at First Sight, Dark Will, Devout Hannibal, Extremely Dubious Consent, Flirting, Ill Will, Infatuation, M/M, Masturbation, No Cannibalism, Religious Fanaticism, Sex, Sexual Experimentation, Theocracy, Turmoil, Unfortunate Implications, Violence, Will with a Crush, Xenophobia, misandry and misogyny: two friends, uncomfortable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:20:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28771488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FKAHerSweetness/pseuds/FKAHerSweetness
Summary: A pious young man is tasked with caring for God's only living son.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 14
Kudos: 63





	1. O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's back? Back again?
> 
> FKAHS is back. Tell a friend.

They said it would come up all at once, and so it does: the summit of Mount Zion piercing the high-swelled sky, still dark from leavings of night; a great swooping downward, the branch of the mountain fattening its way towards ground; and down and down still. The carriage bounces and heaves and groans and, with every hurried trot of the two thin horses dragging its bulk, there is more revealed of the mountain’s greatest burden and blessing: the cathedral built into its side, the grand pillars carved out of sheer earth-aged stone, the flame-lit windows blaring into the gloam. A few flushed flames in the town surround the Mount’s feet. They blink on and off, or perhaps that is only Hannibal’s own tired blinking.

When he blinks again, the shrinking miles between he and Zion have diminished, and he has arrived.

The carriage jolts to a stop, throwing the last sheets of sleep from his body. Hannibal sits straighter, hands on his knees, feeling the unfamiliar fabric of the trousers. His carriagemates, those who have been picked up on the way at neighboring villages far closer than his own, set their clothes to rights: tattered skirts and collars previously bleached from the sun now wrinkled. A girl no older than ten years pushes out ahead of Hannibal, setting her stance soundly on the flagstones of the cathedral. In the shadow of the Mount and the cathedral’s arches, Hannibal eyes the girl.

She has only one strap-bag to her person; her shoes badly worn, her scalp red with lice. But she looks around, watches the others follow the way into the side doors where footmen take inventory of people and goods alike.

Hannibal holds onto his strap-bag — the only thing to his name, here — and follows the girl’s sure footsteps towards the line. She seems to know better than anyone where to go and does not look half as worried as some of the others. Hannibal follows her, waist-height to him, and stands in the coiling line.

Farther back, lower Zion wakes. The sun’s warmth bubbles over the plains and the forests which surround the countryside in balding patches. The scent is unfamiliar, curious, and it takes Hannibal too long to realize he is not awash in the stench of dying and blight and spoil and rot. The scent is what must be fresh air.

He takes in a greedy lungful.

The line is long and slow. The footmen turn a few away, press others into the hungry archway burning with candlelight and warmth. Though the autumn air has only descended, Hannibal’s bones ache from travel and cold and strangeness. This place, too, is strange, but in time it will not be. As with every church he has ever entered, it will soon throw the shawl of welcome around his shoulders and he will be glad in it.

The girl in front of him comes to the footmen. She holds out a letter, emblemed with some unknown mark.

“My uncle will’ve been waiting,” she says. “I’m to come into the Godsmouth’s service.”

One footman reads the letter, looks her up from rubbed-raw shoes to the wild orange curls on her head. “Your age?” he asks.

“Can you not read? It says I’m _nine_ , you great oaf.”

Hannibal watches her, hand tightening on his strap. He never would allow Mischa to travel so far on her own. Can she really be alone?

The footman sends a squinted glare her way before swatting her on the head with the letter.

“Hey! You can’t do that!”

“Get inside, straight down and to the left. You’ll see a woman’s waiting on you. Don’t give her any lip.”

She rubs her head, snatches the letter back. She struts past him and his compatriot, her girl’s shadow growing into womanhood on the stone walls. Hannibal watches her go, curls bouncing, amazed that these men would not go with her. She could get lost, hurt—

“And where do you think you’re going, _good sir_?” the footman asks, placing a hand flat to Hannibal’s chest. He hadn’t known he’d stepped forward. “No one is getting in without due cause. What business have you?”

Hannibal takes a backstep. He produces his own emblemed letter, still scented with the oils that often stained the old priest’s hands. As the footman breaks the seal, Hannibal says, “My name is Hannibal Lecter. I am to come into the High Physician's service.”

  
  


*

“Have you been informed?”

“An amount, sir. Tournay spoke roundly of the situation, but not its particulars.”

“He would not know them. I have kept this matter to these walls and these walls alone. What I divulged to him in my letter were the sorrowful needs of an unfortunate situation — which you see here,” Frederick Chilton says and indicates his darkwood cane. 

The cane glows in the firelight from the hearth, the woodgrain soothed away to an oiled finish. The head, where the High Physician grips it with his pale hand, is vaguely skull-shaped, or perhaps that is only Hannibal’s mind playing tricks on him. The flames throw pale shadows on his robes now in the morning light; he is a neat and small man and Hannibal cannot say he imagined him any different. Frederick looks across the stark room to Hannibal, a small larder with one long table and stores of food that offer new, unctuous scents behind. A girl, not so unlike the one with the orange curls, came and delivered a plate of food in front of Hannibal, and he has yet to touch it, holding himself straight and still and never looking longingly down at the stewed parsnips, the brown bread and mug of beer.

Frederick seems to notice this. “Eat,” he says.

Hannibal does so, gingerly. When the food touches his tongue, suddenly all decorum escapes his body and his stomach gurgles, protesting the days he’s gone without. Hannibal keeps his eyes firmly on his plate.

“I see,” Frederick says, slow. The sound of his approach — foot, cane, foot — echoes. “Tournay mentioned that you and yours had come into hard times.”

“No harder than most,” Hannibal whispers between bites, “outside of Zion.”

“The war does take its toll on the chaff, to be sure. Though it can hardly be helped at this stage. And besides, you have finally found fortune. When you return home, your pockets will be heavy, such that you will never know hunger or burden again. You and your sister, and — or am I mistaken?”

“Yes, and.”

“But you are not married,” he says, and Hannibal wonders if this is a judgement.

“No. It is a circumstance of—”

“Do not trouble yourself — and certainly refrain from troubling _me_. The less I know of it, the better.”

“Forgive me, sir.”

“No need.” He looks out at the lone long window in the room, filling with sun, another bright morning. “His Divinity will arise shortly. Let me be clear, Hannibal: this is not a child’s work. I was initially concerned at your palty few years. Nineteen is hardly enough world and time to have accumulated the disposition this would require. But Tournay gave a glowing recommendation not only on your work aiding him during the blight but your devotion to the church. Something sorely lacking in these walls, but I digress…” His green eyes in the sun reflect, shine. He does not have an unkind bearing, and Hannibal considers he could have met a worse man to work under for these three months. “We will see how you fair, shortly. Tell me, how is your _patience_?”

The food is gone, as is the last of the beer. Hannibal kept himself from scraping the crust against the leavings and eating that too. He says, trying for levity, “My sister has ensured the well of my patience should never run dry.”

*

They did not ever tell him how far in the cathedral itself went into the Mount, nor how wide and tall it was built. From the outside, there were the pillars and the great stone carvings of Dolorous and the windows peering over the city below. From inside, it is some cavernous maw, a beast of beauty and cold and firelight and every corridor burns a deep bowl of what Frederick tells Hannibal is rose oil. Hannibal recalls the many sermons given on Sundays, how Father Tournay would recount Dolorous’ awakening in the wild roses atop the Mount. Hannibal looks into the burning pools of oil, takes in the great wafting gusts of luxury, and cannot yet come to grips with the holy bloodline residing in these walls, the mortal vessel to stand plain before him.

Before the carriage took him leagues away, Tournay sat with Hannibal in their fractured sacristy and said, “Do not let fear or, Heaven forbid, awe keep you from your duty, Hannibal. What good Frederick asks of you, you must take in faith and hold fast. Do not shy away from your divine task.”

Divine task. Hannibal looked at him in the broken light. It really is a divine task, isn’t it? For in all the country, in all of Zion, surely a fair few would be suited for this position. Hannibal has tried, in the three-day’s journey, to not think of the reward sitting at the end. Mischa’s thin cheeks, Chiyoh’s boney hands — those make it hard. But God the Father has chosen him for this. His divine task. Everything else must be—

_You will have his ear._

—secondary.

It is midmorning when Hannibal and Frederick stand in the latter’s office, one room out of many in his quarters. This one room is larger than the entirety of Hannibal’s family home with its shabby thresholds and creaking floors. Deep red pillows sit on a chaise and a wide table scattered with papers and glasses half-filled broaches the center — there must be some logic to the mess but Hannibal doesn’t mention it. Frederick sits in a chair by the chaise, cane across his lap. Hannibal stands; he is overtired and can barely think; he smells of travel and has worn the same gifted clothes from Tournay for the last three days; his left temple pounds rhythmically. He won’t let the doctor know this.

“He approaches,” Frederick says, and struggles briefly to his feet. “Do not speak unless spoken to. We will attempt to make this as painless — and as quick,” he sighs, “as feasible.”

“Yes, sir.”

There is sound in the corridor that Hannibal had not noticed; suddenly, footsteps at the doorway and then pushing into the room. Light spills first on two small pairs of bare feet and Hannibal thinks first his tired mind must be playing tricks on him. Mischa runs barefoot in the house often, though he warns her of rusty nails posing danger.

It isn’t her, of course. Just two girls her own size and shape and skin color: one dark-haired and the other with those outrageous orange curls and she looks so recognizably tired that Hannibal is stricken to ask if she’d like to lie on the chaise and has she had something to eat and is she being well-treated? He doesn’t.

The girls bear baskets of white rose petals, which they toss onto the stones between them. In the marketplace back home, roses are not often seen. And he has never seen a white one. Another pair of bare feet step onto the cushioned pile of petals. They are a young man’s feet and just grazed by the pearl-pleated hem of a long robe. It covers the entirety of him, save his hands which glitter with heavy pearline rings. His face is clouded by a deeply laced veil.

Hannibal is unsure what to do with himself, if it is inappropriate to look even upon the Godsmouth’s form. He lowers his gaze, in case.

Frederick watches him standing at the threshold, the girls motionless with their hands in their baskets. “Ah, Will, thank you for finally gracing us with your _holy presence_. I know how the satin of your pillows must have been pulling at you.”

“I will kick that piece of driftwood right out from under you, old man,” the Godsmouth says, this flippant young voice snapping from behind the veil. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“I would _never_ put such debauchery past you.” Frederick motions with his free hand to the chaise. “How did you sleep?”

“I had nightmares again. Terrible things. A temple of skulls, and each skull sobbed blood.”

“Yes, yes. Sounds frightful. Any ailment of the _body_?”

He starts his way over to the chaise, led hurriedly by the girls throwing petals. Hannibal blinks at the sheer wastefulness, and wonders if that thought is blasphemous. He determines to make no judgement, not now and not again while he is here. The curly-haired girl who shared Hannibal’s carriage looks carefully at her companion who tosses her petals. She blinks hard, sways lightly, and corrects her amount: a fistful turns to few at a time. The Godsmouth dumps himself onto the chaise. His head tilts back towards Hannibal, the lace following the valleys and peaks of his face, the hollow of his opened mouth.

“Will,” Frederick says.

The Godsmouth asks, “But who is that?”

“Never you mind. Roll up your sleeve. Let us have a look at how it’s coming along.”

The Godsmouth sighs but does as asked. One slim arm revealed, a cloth bandage wrapped around his upper arm, tied in a frustrated knot. Frederick motions for Hannibal to come forward. He says, “Take the bandage off. It was healing well enough the other day. A terribly ugly thing. In one of his fits, he fell off the bed and an old cut opened again, with a large bruise besides.”

The Godsmouth says, “Do not call it a _fit_.”

“A _convulsion_ , then.”

Hannibal approaches this length of thin body draped over the furniture. He has seen only paintings of statues in far-off lands that looked twin to this: impossibly white and still. The Godsmouth’s skin is sickly pale. As if he does not venture out often. Hannibal’s own skin is well-tanned and hardened, burnt at the fingertips with lye and formaldehyde. He kneels at the chaise side and goes to undo the bandage, hands stopping a hair’s breadth from the pallid flesh offered.

“What is the matter?” Frederick asks.

Hannibal keeps his gaze lowered. He says, “Permission, Your Divinity. To touch you.”

He might have considered not asking, from what he was ordered before. Though it seems wrong. The air is thick, weighted, and the girls at the chaise’s end shuffle their feet in the flower petals.

“You have it,” the Godsmouth says, quiet.

Hannibal takes the arm in his grasp and works quickly, unwrapping the bandage and letting it fall to the ground. Underneath: a closed wound, greenish now, and yes, ugly. Hannibal barely suppresses his distaste and does not understand it in himself. He had not imagined this body could be harmed so. Frederick asked him earlier if he had been informed and he supposes he hadn’t been. Hannibal glances up and balks to find one bright eye peering at him from under a bit of the lifted veil.

It blinks.

“Will!”

The Godsmouth lowers the veil again and huffs. “You are a terrible nuisance, Frederick.”

Frederick ignores him and cranes his head from where he stands. “It looks to be doing better. We could do with another patch of yarrow root, simply to keep it closed.”

“But it _burns_ ,” the Godsmouth insists, but does not twist away. “I will not have it. You cannot make me.”

“All right. Let the arm grow infected and fall right off your negligent body. Then we can all just be done with the whole charade.”

The Godsmouth groans helplessly, an alarming sound.

Hannibal attempts to tamp down any and all judgement. He cannot imagine speaking to one of the holy bloodline in this way. And the noises coming from behind that veil — Hannibal would think it a pouty child under the heavy lace and not one of Dolorous’ own descendents. He watches as Frederick struggles to his feet and cane and goes to the back of the room, far by the windows where sunlight spreads over shelves of bottles. He mumbles to himself, the cane tapping.

Hannibal glances away from him only to be met with two bright eyes boring into his. The veil lifted back completely. The face peering at him, tilted slightly, is so young. Framed by dark curls shining in the light. Two colossal pearls hanging from each ear, tugging each lobe down. Had Hannibal not believed it, even as common knowledge? That the Godsmouth is a boy of sixteen years. Faced with the truth now, there is no escaping it. It seems, strangely, ill-fated for such wild power to lie in a youth’s hands, feet, body — and yet. Those eyes. They mismatch the rest of him, fresh and unstained. Those eyes look to be an ocean of time, as old as the very mountain they sit inside. Hannibal cannot understand it. Fleetingly, it occurs to him that perhaps it is not to be understood.

“What is your name?” the Godsmouth whispers.

“Hannibal Lecter, Your Divinity—”

“Don’t bore me with pompous titles. You’ll call me Will and like it.”

Hannibal doesn’t consider refusing. It is a command, given from the highest ranking member of the church, God’s splendor made flesh. He says, “Yes, Will,” and Will's pink thin lips pull to the side: an imp’s smile.

Hannibal glances aside; Frederick has reached forward, far into the shelves, cursing loudly at whomever jostled his tonics.

Will moves closer to the edge of the chaise and takes his arm from Hannibal’s grasp. He uses both hands to grip Hannibal’s bicep through the thin fabric of his shirt. Clutching, testing, like a woman at market squeezing fruit. His nimble fingers knead, work, with nothing that could be called strength. Hannibal holds himself from jerking back. After a moment, his fingers halt, and he seems satisfied; he moves to Hannibal’s other arm—

“ _Willam_!”

Will releases Hannibal, slumps back against the pillows and the veil resettles over his face, erasing both the youth and the fathomless age. He is a statue again, white and unknown.

Frederick comes huffing back to the two of them, bottle in one hand, liquid sloshing through the green glass.

“Dolorous! I cannot trust you to behave,” he says, exasperated, “to observe even _one_ tenet of propriety. Can I? Can I?”

“I just wanted to _see_ him. I almost fell over earlier with this thing in my face. I cannot see anything. This is a hazard!”

“I don’t care one whit. Hannibal, put this on the wound and rebandage it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hannibal sets to his business and Will holds still. He largely ignores Frederick’s griping from the table and though Hannibal can no longer see those eyes, he feels them straining through the lace, focused on Hannibal’s fingers flying over the wound, dressing it in a hissing liquid, tugging the bandage tight but not too tight. He finishes it in one small bow, which Mischa always favors when she rolls herself down a too-steep hill, or cuts herself climbing a tree at the edge of the lea. She says his bows are so pretty, it almost makes the pain worth it. 

Will raises his arm aloft, flexing it this way and that. He lowers it then, under the veil, to see the small white bow. He makes a pleased chirp.

He does not turn back to Frederick when he asks, “Is Hannibal Lecter staying?”

Frederick eyes the work over Will’s shoulder. He nods. “Indeed, for a time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels so empty without me.
> 
> [fkahersweetness](https://fkahersweetness.tumblr.com/)


	2. HOW GENTLE GOD'S COMMANDS

Midafternoon nears as Hannibal is shown to his quarters, on a floor separate from where they treat Will. He should be gathering his bearings, familiarizing himself, staying alert — but by now it has been a full day and some hours since he and sleep were deeply acquainted. For all his attempts to hide this, it must show. Frederick instructs a girl to bring him to the servant’s quarters. He follows her past a stream of others congregating around an open door; tiny feet pressing against the stone floors, giggling, lithe shadows printed with firelight against the walls. He peers inside, half a glance, noting the multitude of woodworked bed-frames, thin feathered beds, hair colors flashing by, a tumble, a shrill cry.

“Yours, sir,” says Hannibal’s small guide, standing at the end of the corridor.

Hannibal leaves their room behind, goes to stand at the threshold of his single room, small as a church closet with one bed, a dresser, writing desk, and no window. As the girl turns to go, he calls to her, “Am I not to share? There is only one bed here.”

“The High Physician gave it.” She turns again, then pauses to look back. “You are very lucky, if I may say. _I_ would love to have my own room. The girl who shares my bed kicks at night. Says she dreams she is an ass.” She chews her cheek a bit, then is off, quick-footed down the hall.

Hannibal goes into the room, shuts the door. It is indeed the size of some of the closets he viewed in Frederick’s office, and yet it is a smidge larger than the bedroom he shares with Chiyoh back home. At once a blessing and a horrible notion: that he should stay here for months where the chill will not tug him at night, not through these deep mountain walls. Where he will be fed stewed parsnips and hardy bread and deeply flavored beer. The morning he left, the stars still winking slow to sleep, he heard Mischa’s insides growl and he told Chiyoh to put as much sugar as she could in Mischa’s water; that would trick her stomach into thinking it had been fed.

Chiyoh grabbed his sleeve as he went to the door. “There _is_ no more sugar,” she said, hushed, as Mischa was within the thin walls of the house. “I do not know what we will do without you, Hannibal.”

“Tournay will help if you need him.”

“I will not go to that wretched church. Not should starvation be upon me.”

“Send Mischa. I will return before the first thaw.” He held her thin hand, shared his meager warmth. “You know this is for the best. When next you see me, you will not want for anything.”

“Only do what you can,” she said, nails pressing into his flesh. Her smile shivered. “Remember.”

Hannibal did not answer her. The argument they’d had the night prior was still fanned to flaming on his heart, and he could not look upon her favorably even at parting. He regrets it now, here, where he sits in comfort on a feathered bed with a full stomach and the prickling ghost-sensations of God’s mortal flesh still on his singed fingertips.

He unpacks his few things: a falling-apart book of parchment holding sketches of home; a scrap of lead; some notes he kept of his mother’s tonic recipes; a spare shirt and trousers, badly patched by Chiyoh’s hand. He will give these currently borrowed clothes he wears back to Tournay when he returns and thank him, as no one has yet made mention of his poor dress.

When he finally lays down in his smallclothes, he stares at the stone ceiling. He thinks it will take him ages to sleep. He sleeps.

*

When the knock comes, Hannibal’s body is confused; he is unused to not being able to see the sky immediately upon waking. The girl peering in whispers, “It is time for mass, sir. The High Physician calls for you.”

Hannibal thanks her and expects her to leave as quietly as she came. But she opens the door wider and shuffles in with a set of clothes, placing them on the bedside table. The candlelight vanishes suddenly when she goes. He is alone to dress in the finest woollen trousers and canvas shirt that have ever graced his body; immaculate stitchwork and a faint scent of linseed oil. If there were a mirror here, surely he would not recognize himself.

He delivers himself to the corridor where the girl waits. Hannibal recognizes this one, in the flame she carries: the dark-haired girl who expertly scattered her petals beneath Will’s feet. He follows her back through the winding ways, up rose-scented steps, into Frederick’s offices where he stands in the yawning morning light of a window. He is dressed in much finer clothes, reds and blacks dyed so deeply they hurt Hannibal’s eyes.

“Ah, there you are,” he says and, with a wave, dismisses the girl like a puff of smoke. “I assumed you would be tired through the next morning — luckily, our charge did not have any fits in need of heavy lifting in the interim. We thank God the Father for small miracles. I see the fit is right.”

Hannibal blinks down at his new clothes. “This is far too generous of you, sir.”

“Nonsense. You cannot attend a Zion mass in the rags you wore yesterday. It would not be proper.” He taps his cane along the floor as he approaches, as he directs them out of the room. “Tournay apprised me of your piety during our correspondence. He apprised me of a great many things — the loss of your parents and your unfortunate situation. As a man of both science and the church, I am more practical than most. You are a fine tool and so you shall be used. It matters not to me whom you allow under your roof or from whence they hail. However, I would not say my point of view is common within these walls. There are not many for you to speak to, yet I feel compelled all the same to impress upon you this: do not loosely wag your tongue on the circumstances of your living situation back home. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good. It would raise eyebrows and alarm, and I try to keep both lowered whenever possible.”

“Yes.”

Hannibal had planned on doing no such thing to begin with. It slips around his stomach enough that even Frederick is aware of Chiyoh, that Tournay would mention her. But he supposes it is only right, and taking this divine task under guise would sully everything. But Frederick is also right in that there is no one to wag his tongue at. There are only girls in these walls, blithe and unbled. Hannibal would no more explain his sordid business to them than he would his own sister.

“Come smartly,” Frederick urges him, standing far ahead. Hannibal is unsure how he manages to walk so quickly with that cane. There are heavy doors with arches the height of adult beech trees. Frederick raps his cane against one and both open from the other side; before him stands a wide cold hall of proportions it takes Hannibal’s mind a moment to process. He sees the stained glass long in the distance through which sunlight pours and feels his body falling forward though it is not falling forward and he likens this to both duty and love.

Tournay’s recollections fill him like ponding water. This is the great cathedral where God’s words drift through the air like snow every Sunday for the people of lower Zion. Great merchants and stall vendors and housewives and midwives alike come from their pretty homes of brick and hardwood and file into this hallowed place in their finest linens and leather boots. He sees them now in the pews, filing in from the great doors behind. That way lies the heavy steps up to the cathedral from the town and they must have heard the bells calling, though Hannibal is sure they are muted deep in the mountain.

Frederick leads Hannibal through the arches and directly onto the raised stand under the pulpit. They take two seats away from the pews in a secluded corner with fine views of the interior. A man stands in the pulpit, embellished with gold and eggshell robes and zucchetto. He stares down at a leather bound bible, fat fingers scanning.

Frederick glances around Hannibal, craning his neck. “Aha. Of _course_ he is late — for what is a Sunday mass without a spectacle of interruption?”

Hannibal looks too: the grand doors they entered are twinned on the other side of the pulpit. Footmen open them at unseen behest and two girls rush out, tossing white petals along the ground. Behind them, Will shuffles quickly over the made walkway and up to a marble seat high above the pulpit which Hannibal only now notices. He is not used to there being any seating above the priest during sermon.

Will trips over his own robes and falls forward against the steps. There is such a silence in the air, louder than any gasp from the parishioners.

Hannibal starts out of his chair, held back by Frederick’s cane over his lap.

“Easy, lad — this is a commonplace occurrence. The girls have it.” He waves and, like sorcery, the girls rush to Will’s aid and stand him upright. From his tiny frame, he likely does not weigh much more than them. He ambles up to the seat and perches there, veil sitting in place, robes lightly ruffled. Frederick snorts. “I’m sure he skinned or bumped himself. Work for us after the sermon, to be sure.”

“Sir,” Hannibal whispers, venturing, “has the Godsmouth been so accident-prone all his life?”

“Ha!” It rings out in the reverrent quiet. “You do not know _half_ of it. None in my family line have _ever_ had such a riotous child to serve. They have hardly done more than birth the next Godsmouth and rested on that sole laurel, whiling away their long days within the cathedral and then dying peaceably in their beds. I myself have been burdened beyond all fairness.” He taps his cane against his hip. “He did this to me, you know. Rotten imp.”

Hannibal cannot mute his disbelief. “He _lamed_ you?”

“Quite so. You ought to watch yourself or you will be stooped over before your time.”

The liturgy starts before Hannibal can reply. He and Frederick are served by a girl who offers them the body and blood of Dolorous, which they ingest. The priest begins the sermon with reference to last Sunday and words he spoke on the glory and the sacrifice of wartime. When Dolorous found herself resolved in the wild rose garden atop the Mount, awake with holy purpose, did she quiver and moan, as is woman's way, over what she must do?

“No,” says the priest, who Frederick whispers is called Abel Gideon and who Frederick also whispers is prone to digression but the people like him well enough, “for in her awakening on the Mount, God said unto Dolorous, ‘You are my blood and sinew and bone of this world and there is naught I would command that you could not do — you and your line will thrust truth through the hearts of your foes which are foes of Myself and you and your line will remake the world from the clay I have placed at your feet.’

“Dolorous said to God the Father: ‘But how will I tell the world what is good and just in Your righteous name?’

“And God said: ‘You will speak with My mouth and your words will ring gospel in the hearts of those believers and they will know your lips to be My lips and they will know your tongue to be My tongue.’

“We thank our Godsmouth Claudia, God rest her mighty soul, for showing us the way in this holy war on the barbarous Eastlands. And her holy son and God’s holy son, Godsmouth Willam, will continue in her penitent footsteps in leading us upon his ascent.” Abel steps lightly aside on the pulpit so the congregation may have a clear view of Will on his high perch with two girl-children kneeling at his feet. Will is unmoving as the congregation rises and, as one, sinks to their knees in worship. Hannibal moves to do the same and Frederick, through his groan and awkward hip, joins him on the stonework.

When Hannibal’s forehead touches the cold floor, a grace floods his senses and he feels as if he has no travel behind him at all. Wherever he may roam, he is home on his knees.

The sermon closes, the congregation returns to their seats, and the mass ends with a hymn from a choir of unbled girls. They file out from the sacristy doors, twelve of them, in offwhite robes and small sandals. They stand with their songbooks and thin voices fill the room.

_“Where goest Thou, my Savior kind? O Dolorous, tell Thou me!_

_Take me with Thee, forsake me not! With Thee, alone I’d be!_

_‘Take courage now,’ my Savior says, ‘I do but lead the way._

_Forever by my Father there Who all things doth possess,_

_In this short time then patient be! Though cares around thee throng…’”_

Hannibal watches them in sheer wonder. He sees the littlest one, this side of the stage, with her curls of gold and thinks of Mischa. She would sing hymns in Tournay’s splintered pews, her voice waned and weakened with hunger. But Hannibal had always loved the sound. Perhaps he should not have left her there, even if Chiyoh is with her. Perhaps she could have found servants’ work here, singing in the choir or attending at Will’s feet. She would share her room, her bed, with little like girls who kicked in the night but she would be warm and fed.

He tries not to let guilt and doubt plague him in this holy place. The song ends and, when the congregation rises and kneels again at Will’s ungainly departure, they too depart out of the front doors. Hannibal watches as they slip fat pockets of gold and silver into the tithe bowls at the door.

“Finally,” Frederick says, rising to knuckle his low back. “This is unbearable. I will have to take a soak in hot mineral water to rid myself of stiffness!”

Hannibal is spared from responding when the priest approaches them in all his frippery. His presence brings smoke and incense.

“Welcome, lad,” he says, patting Hannibal’s shoulder. “Good Frederick here has told me of your much-awaited arrival. I hear you are to help carry his old bones around the cathedral steps! Much needed assistance.”

Frederick snorts, waving a hand. “Ignore him, Hannibal. The High Priest often confuses absurdity for jest and jest for piety. That is why his sermons are so unfortunately amusing.”

“I found the sermon quite moving,” Hannibal says, gaze lowered.

“Bah!”

“Thank you,” Abel says, smiling. “Hannibal, is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Perhaps you’d like to join us for dinner one evening. We could speak on my moving sermons at some length. It would be nice to have someone to converse with — anyone, at this point! Frederick is a terrible study with his scripture. He does not even know the order of Dolorous’ holy trials. Can you imagine!”

“I know that two comes after one.” Frederick taps away with his cane. “Let us see to our duty, Hannibal.”

Hannibal turns and follows, leaving the emptying cathedral behind; streaks of hymns still hang in the air.

*

“The Godsmouth refuses to come out,” says the orange-curled girl, standing at Frederick's office threshold. Her scalp is less red, hair less matted. Skin scrubbed clean. She is being well cared for.

“What do you mean, he _refuses?_ ” Frederick demands, beating his cane on the tabletop, scattering pages.

“Just that, Uncle,” she says. “He won’t come. He has cloistered himself in his garden and has said the Mount will turn, _um,_ crumbly like old cheese before he shows himself again.”

Frederick places his head in one hand.

“Uncle?”

“Leave it to us. We will pry him,” he says, lowering the hand again. “Begone.”

She is gone.

As Frederick leads Hannibal from his quarters, grumbling, Hannibal chances a glance at the man.

“I can _feel_ you ruminating, Hannibal, and it quite unsettles me,” Frederick says. “Speak now or forever hold your thoughts.”

“The young girl. I came with her on a carriage, the night I arrived.”

“Yes.”

“That is your niece?”

“Yes. Fredericka. Her mother named her after me to curry some favor, surely, and a place for her here.” He shakes his head, low, as would a tired old horse. “I am a soft-hearted man. I cannot turn away one named for myself, of course this my sister knew… quite probably plotted from the girl’s conception!”

“She is from your esteemed family line. Surely there might be a higher place for one of her birth.”

“And what higher place would there be? An unbled servant of the Godsmouth is a greatly revered position. The girls here are well-treated and kept chaste. When she finally bleeds, she will make a fine virgin wife for a rich lower Zion merchant and live out her days in luxury. It is what her mother wants for her. It is a righteous life.”

Perhaps this would not be the right place for Mischa, after all. Hannibal attempts to keep his thoughts quiet as they move to a higher floor, through a corridor thick with rose scent. There is one great door with a grand carving of a rose in the wood grain. Frederick taps it and Hannibal opens the door for him, pressing his shoulder in. A flood of scent rushes for him as Frederick steps into the wide room. The rose oil seems soaked into the place, dizzying. Hannibal moves inwards after Frederick and takes note of the grand room: flush with sunlight from the windows on the long side and broached with a bed the size of a small fish pond, heavy with drapery; the walls coated in tapestries of biblical stories and Hannibal can at once recognize the awakening of Dolorous on the Mount, square over the bed.

Frederick rushes with his cane to the far side of the room where another door is closed. Fredericka and her dark-haired companion flank either side.

The dark-haired girl does not lift her head when she says, “He is bleeding. He hurt himself on the steps during mass.”

Frederick raps on the door with his cane. “Come out of there, you impertinent child of God. Come out, I say! Let me have a look at what you’ve done to yourself!”

“A pox on you and your stupid old stick,” Will cries from inside, barely muffled by the thick door.

Frederick’s eyes bulge. “Do not make light of poxes!”

“A pox, a pox, a pox!”

Frederick devolves into aghast starts and stops. Finally, he whirls about with as much clumsy grace as there is in the world and storms back from where they came. He shouts, “Let him be! Let him bleed and be!”

The room is quiet in his wake. Hannibal stands before the door. He knocks, once, cautious.

“Your Divinity— Will—” Hannibal lowers his hand. “Might I—”

He must take a step back when the door cracks open. One bright eye with all the eons in it stares at him.

“Hannibal,” Will says.

Hannibal nods and motions to his strap-bag. “I would like to see to your wounds, if you permit it.”

“Who told you I have wounds?” he asks and that eye narrows down at the two girls stationed outside his door.

“ _I_ surmised.”

“Well.” There’s this delicate sound of fingernails tapping at the wood. “Perhaps. Has the old man gone off in a strop?”

“Indeed.”

Will cackles. He steps out of view and the door opens a bit more, enough for Hannibal to squeeze himself through. Will shuts it again before the girls can follow. He slams a giant lock down to bar the door and Hannibal can see now that this garden they spoke of is a rose garden, sprouting white roses clustered so closely together that the ground looks like snow on the heath after God has rent the sky and one forgets for a moment that stark beauty is ever escorted by lean times. The garden ovals out into a balcony that overlooks the wide countryside away from lower Zion. Sun spills onto the waiting petals and Will stands amid them, soaked in his white and pearl garment with a spreading spot of blood against the skirts. He has thrown his head covering away on a pillowed bench in the garden. 

When Hannibal looks at him, plain in sunlight, he is stricken again by those ancient eyes.

“I look like a girl having her first blood,” Will tells him, eyebrows in a light tremble. “I fell in front of the entire congregation. Already they are in their homes, gossiping about how the Godsmouth could not keep his own balance.”

“Never to contradict you, Will, but I think instead they are home telling their families how blessed they are to have seen you at all.”

Will quirks his mouth. He turns and walks through the roses, stamping them to pieces. He throws himself back on the bench.

“You are better than the old man at flattery,” he says, watching with those strange eyes as Hannibal approaches. “It _is_ nice to see someone new. I do not see many new people.”

“Surely you have new girls to serve you, when one bleeds and is sent away,” Hannibal says. He kneels at the bench side and undoes his strap, looking into the bag for soothing balm and bandages.

“They don’t count! I mean someone to _talk_ to.” His foot flickers back and forth like the tail of an interested cat. “I only ever see Frederick for my health and Abel for my scripture and both are old and fat and putrid company besides.” 

Hannibal flattens his mouth to stifle any laughter. He nods to Will’s bloodied skirts and says, “Please, if I might see.”

Will pulls the robe and underskirts up past his bleeding knee, resting them high on the thigh; Hannibal notices he is either deftly shaven or does not grow body hair. It would not surprise him if it were the latter. Hannibal returns his gaze to the knee and takes a cloth from his bag. He dampens it with his tongue and wipes at the bit of blood and torn flesh.

Will exhales a soft noise.

Hannibal stops.

“I did not say stop,” Will tells him.

Hannibal continues, but softer. Will reclines back and Hannibal can feel himself being watched but cannot tell if it is in favor or judgement.

“Tell me of your home,” Will says. “Tell me exciting things.”

But those are two conflicting requests. Hannibal’s home is far from exciting — he considers it quite woeful and does not want to woe the Godsmouth when he had been in a mood not much earlier. Hannibal so takes it upon himself to intersperse the truth with grains of excitement. His home is on the outskirts of the region, in a small lea, which is true. His village is a great network of trafficked goods from Zion’s conquered lands, which is exciting and untrue. Instead of considering this lying, Hannibal thinks of his nights at Mischa’s bedside, making up fantastic tales to send her to sleep in a happy mood despite her rumbling stomach.

Will brightens even as Hannibal applies a stinging serum to his cuts. “And do you live alone in this beautiful village? You must have a wife to whom you offer many far-off treasures.”

“I do not have a wife, nor do I live alone.” Hannibal pauses as he ties the bandage: a neat bow. “I live with my little sister. Our parents are long dead. And I am not so well off that I can afford our many enticements.”

“How sad. You will not be so burdened when you return, however. I assume the old man has been generous with your fee.”

“Very much so.”

“You are fortunate, Hannibal,” Will sighs and looks off towards the balcony and open vista. The sky is still blue though it moves toward late afternoon. Like the sun, Will’s skirts have yet to descend. “I wish I could see this lovely home of yours. I would like to see far-off wonders. The closest I get, now, are the great shipments of jade being woven into my bedclothes and linens. From the Eastlands. We gather more everyday.”

_You will have his ear!_

Hannibal flinches. He rises and finally Will lowers his robe. He throws his legs over the side of the bench and walks to the edge of the balcony; along the stone balustrade are carved white roses. He looks over a small fraction of his and God the Father’s kingdom. Hannibal ventures to join him, keeping a respectable distance. In the sunlight proper, Hannibal notices the way Will’s pale skin glows, hungry for the sun’s warmth. Like a boy who has lived in a cave all his life.

“You are not outside the Mount often,” Hannibal says.

“No. The old man has never permitted it much. I am _frail_ , he says. When Mother was alive, she did not care one way or the other.” Will’s curls lift in the breeze. “He says God the Father will strengthen me after my ascension, but that is three _months_ from now and every day seems a tattered eternity.”

“It is not my place to say but I think direct sunlight and fresh air would do your body good,” Hannibal says, hedging. “Though I am no High Physician.”

“No,” Will murmurs, turning around. “You are not.” His pensive expression breaks into a smile. “But you are close to him! He favors you. Even during mass, I could see it, the way he chattered at you. And those clothes are obvious gifts. You will speak to him and convince him to allow me out of the cathedral walls. Just for a little.”

He will?

He supposes he will. This sounds for all the world like a command. Hannibal nods. “I will do what I can.”

Will comes to him, a bounce in his step even with the injured leg. He grabs hold of Hannibal’s arm, gripping his bicep tightly. He laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frederick is worth his weight in gold. Thoughts appreciated!
> 
>   
>  More: [fkahersweetness](https://fkahersweetness.tumblr.com/)


	3. KNOW YE THAT LAND?

During the three-day journey from the lea to Mount Zion, Hannibal had many moments to daydream and worry. He wondered what life would be like under the service of the High Physician and if he would be treated well. He had heard stories in the village: people who had made the great trek to the cathedral, saved all year to make a suitable tithe to the Godsmouth, and attend a sermon given by the holy High Priest. How great the pillars; how beautiful the young Godsmouth in his robes, the holy visage kept curtained from those too low to the ground, too like worms. How fulfilled they had felt then, how at peace. 

Hannibal did feel that when he was on the ground, prostrate in reverence. He felt it, too, when the girl-choir lifted spirits with their hymn.

But that feeling has almost completely dried, now, here: as he looks at himself in a mirror that his small room has been gifted. Another set of clothes had come — and another, and another. The unbled girl who came burdened with the heavy parcel said, “From the High Physician, good sir.”

Hannibal looked through them briefly. “This is surely too much.”

“He’s said to use them for your supper tonight,” she said and lingered at the door, eyeing the spread of beautiful linens the colors of ultramarines and jaspers. She gave an appraising squint. “I like the red, I think. Brings out the color of your eyes, sir.”

Hannibal smiled and she shied behind the door. “You may call me Hannibal,” he told her. “We are of the same position, both in service of the Lord.”

She nodded faintly and left him with the door closed. Hannibal heeded her and dressed and straightened himself in the mirror and moves now from the servants’ quarters to meet Frederick in the upper halls amid a lofty scent of warm roses. Frederick is dressed in his darkest black hemmed with gold and even in these fine gifted clothes, Hannibal feels underdressed.

“Again,” Hannibal says, “you are far too generous.”

“Nonsense. I only did not want to hear from Abel that I am treating you ill. He has an unnatural obsession with gaudiness, you will see,” Frederick says, walking and tapping along. He glances at Hannibal a half-step behind him. “It does suit you though. You may keep them.”

They come to a lonely corridor Hannibal has not seen before. He could say so for most of the interior. The space is enormous, only hinted at from outside. It burrows deep into the mountain and Hannibal sometimes wonders, alone in his room at night, at how doomed they all would be should the mountain ever crumble. But God would never permit such a thing.

Abel Gideon’s quarters are expansive and he keeps his own dining hall with a glowing hearth at the wall, illuminating the room. The darkwood table harbors small candles along the center and Abel greets Hannibal as if he is no servant at all but an honored guest. He shakes Hannibal’s hand with both of his and his eyes twinkle. Frederick yawns openly and demands milk at the table.

“What a pious man,” Abel says, laughing as if Hannibal is to join in. He raises his glass of wine. “Taking a holy vow of sobriety, Frederick?”

“Ass,” Frederick says, morose. “You know my ulcers cannot handle wine.”

“That is why I serve it.”

Hannibal sits with his hands in his lap as serving women, old and quiet, file into the room and set down platter after platter of an unending feast, such that Hannibal’s eyes round and shine with disbelief: whole roast suckling pig; a thick stew, bobbing with vegetables; a brown gravy, slick with fat shining in the firelight; whole loaves of brown bread; stewed spinach slicked with hot butter; a dish of off-green fruit that Hannibal, for the life of him, cannot put a name to.

Abel catches Hannibal staring at the fruit placed square in front of him. “Ah, have you had this sort of melon before? From the Eastlands, quite a new thing. It’s very good, please have some.”

“Bah,” Frederick says. “All this new Eastland food turns my stomach.”

“What does  _ not _ turn your stomach these days, old friend?”

Hannibal is served by one of the old women; a healthy slice of the melon, too, is set on his plate. He stares at the pale green flesh. Perhaps no one will notice if he does not take a bite. There is so much food already. So much. Hannibal has not had meat since he arrived here; he had not even thought of it. He’s been well-fed almost to the point of sickness at times and it did not register that this is how the upper classes may be eating on the floors just above. When he was home, he had not had meat in going on two years, such an expense as it was. He looks at his portion of suckling pig with its golden skin and white flesh and thinks of Mischa’s thin cheeks.

“Hannibal?”

His head lifts immediately towards Abel. “Yes, sir.”

He smiles, open-mouthed. “Have you ever seen one? An Eastlander?”

Hannibal’s gaze flinches towards Frederick; he is nursing his milk, eyes averted. Hannibal says, “No, sir, for there are not many in this country.”

“Not many but some. In the early days, before the war, there was some talk of strife to come and relations were tepid. You may be too young to remember all this. A good many boats came to our shores and their people integrated into our own.” He talks while cutting his pig, while dousing his greens in gravy. “They seeped into our towns, villages, the far-off mountain ranges. Claudia, God rest her mighty soul, made an effort to root them out, but at that point it was almost like taking grains of sand from the Morning Sea.”

Hannibal thinks of Chiyoh’s face, streaming with tears, standing alone at his doorstep.

“I’m afraid I am too young to remember,” Hannibal says.

“Do not bore the young man with trivial matters,” Frederick chides. “Is this your idea of good supper conversation? Matters of  _ government _ ? Spare him.”

“You’re right — he’s right! Forgive me, Hannibal, but in the years before our young Godsmouth comes into his own, I am chiefly to do with these matters of state. They taint my mind, muddle my manners.” He serves himself another half of a loaf. “When the boy ascends, I will be relieved of my duties and glad of it.”

Hannibal glances upwards. Will resides floors above them. How might he dine? Hannibal can just see it: Will inundated with all the shining, slick foods here but at a table of one, little unbled girls kneeling at his bare feet.

“We will _ all _ be glad of it,” Frederick says. “The boy does my head to pieces. I have been greatly blessed with Hannibal’s presence. He seems to have a way with him — managed to see to his injuries after his acrobatics at this week’s sermon. He’d locked himself in the rose garden and Hannibal fished him out with nary a struggle. Seemed cheery enough the rest of the day.”

Abel favors Hannibal with a bright smile. “Say, now that is a talent! Frederick has known the Godsmouth since his first breath and has never garnered even a smile.”

“I would not go that far,” Frederick mutters.

“I would.”

“Speaking of the Godsmouth,” Hannibal says, attempting to look uninterested, “he mentioned that he would like to take a trip out of the cathedral walls while the weather is still agreeable.”

Frederick snorts. “I’m  _ sure  _ he would. Probably to try escaping, the little imp.”

“I don’t believe he would do that,” Hannibal says.

“Of course you don’t. You don’t know him.” Frederick shakes his fork at Hannibal. “He would have you believe he is some doe-eyed woodland creature being held captive though he rains terror upon me day and night! We did allow him out when he was younger. His good mother, Claudia, God rest her mighty soul, allowed it, and off we went into lower Zion with a host of guards. No matter, the Godsmouth traipsed right off, escaped under our noses! I never knew fear and panic like I knew that afternoon — any manner of calamity could have befallen him. Kidnapping, rape, the ensuing ransom and then— then, my head would be shorn from my poor shoulders when I returned without God’s heir! I commanded the guards to spread out and find him; I had every street searched. Hours, hours, spent fearing for his life  _ and _ mine!” Frederick has worked himself into quite a tizzy: forehead wet with sweat, hair askew, teeth clenched. “And then, when all hope seemed lost, when I was surely damned to Hell everlasting for my folly, I sat on the dirty street and wept bitter tears. And beside me, from out of a basket of radishes ready for market, popped his curly-haired head. The grin on his face, oh, Hannibal, when I tell you I’ve never seen one as  _ toothy _ nor as  _ infuriating _ … you know well I mean it.”

Abel smirks at Hannibal. “I never tire of hearing that story. Gets better every time.”

Hannibal waits until Frederick calms himself, fixes his flyaways, and settles. “But, sir, he is older now. And with his ascension approaching and his health in a questionable state, I thought some direct sunlight might help the situation. He looks… ill.”

“He  _ is _ ill,” Abel says. “He has always been quite the delicate creature— cannot handle intense foods, bruises far too easily.”

“But what if he runs away again?” Frederick asks, voice slightly raw.

“While—”

The doors open, birthing the same line of old women — a few to clear the supper dishes, others to replace them with a new bounty of sweets: orange pudding and cherry tarts and cakes and, Hannibal is aggrieved to find, yet another bowl of those Eastland melons.

The women leave and Hannibal continues, soft, “While I don’t believe it is a large risk, we could keep him to the valley near the mountain. Surround him with guards and, of course, you will be there, sir. I could be there as well. Surely he could not elude _ all  _ of us.”

“That’s what I believed when he was ten. At sixteen, he is likely more wiley.”

“But he can barely walk up stairs without mishap.”

Abel waves a finger. “A good point.”

Frederick heaves a long sigh. “Oh. I don’t know. I don’t know how much suspense my old heart can take. If he were to go off, we don’t have any Godsmouth to birth another. The entire country would be surely damned.”

“I will take responsibility,” Hannibal says before he concretely understands he’s spoken at all.

“Responsibility?”

“Yes. I will not let him escape.” He pauses as the two men look at him. “Sirs, my position is simply one of servitude and I will defer to your commands, as ever. Yet I take my position to be one of great importance, a divine task. And though I serve you best I can, Frederick, I am always in service to God the Father and our Godsmouth. If this chance will ease him, even lighten his moods, I will endeavor to take it.”

Frederick opens his mouth and shuts it. Abel’s meaty hands find each other again and again as he claps over his plate of sweets.

“ _ Yes! _ Now here is one I have been looking for — oh, Frederick, our parishioners can squawk and kneel and genuflect generously, but are they truly devout in their hearts? Here is one,  _ here _ is one!”

Hannibal looks down at his hands.

Frederick sighs, swirling the milk in his cup. “Oh. Oh  _ fine. _ ”

*

When Will is told the news, he looks at Frederick and then away. He touches his left earring, the giant pearl that burdens his lobe.

“That will be fine,” he says and makes it plain that he is not moved one way or the other. Frederick makes a disgusted sound and throws up one hand, the other planted firmly on his cane, and he whirls out of the room in a fit of black robes. Hannibal goes after him, chancing to look back briefly, and is met with Will’s exaggerated wink in his direction. 

He leaves the room, wondering where Will has learned such a gesture.

The day of, Hannibal gazes up and thinks that God the Father has blessed the Godsmouth’s trip under His beautiful sky. It stretches endlessly, this pale blue freckled with white clouds. The day is fair cold, hinting at a strong winter to come, but Will is wearing a heavy swan-white cloak over his robes — a white rose is pearl-beaded into the back; his usually bare feet are hidden in white slips. Today he is accompanied by Fredericka and her dark-haired companion who both are kept alert by Will’s walking here and there over the grass and few dandelions. They hurry to throw their petals under his tread.

The guards Frederick enlisted make a wide circle in the valley. They face inwards, as if any potential danger may come from the Godsmouth himself and not from a band of rogues or thieves. Frederick stands a few feet beside Hannibal, shivering under his own black cloak.

“Terrible weather,” he says, hugging himself in. “We should have postponed.”

Hannibal says nothing to contradict him. Instead, he says, “The Godsmouth looks happy.”

“Of course he does. He’s managed to dupe us all into taking him out here and now he will simply vanish into thin air, abandoning us to Satan’s imps.”

If Hannibal hadn’t spent the last full week in Frederick’s company, he would think this a jest. To calm him, he says, “I will keep him within sight.”

“Yes, yes. Go see what he is plotting.”

Hannibal moves closer. He keeps a respectable distance and seats himself in the cool grass that crunches under his weight. From here, Will is viewed against the far-off treeline, the swathes of red and yellow and orange dotting the boughs. He holds his hands up toward the sky as if God the Father might drop rain-sized miracles into those palms.

From Hannibal’s strap-bag, he takes his bound few pages out. He took with him a piece of lead. The best way to keep Will in his line of sight is to never take his eyes off. He sets to work, lightly sketching him against the whirling sky.

For the next half hour, Will barely moves from that spot. And every step he takes back and forth is followed by his unbled servants in their downshawls. When Hannibal glances over his shoulder, he finds Frederick sitting on a pillowed bench the footmen brought out. He looks to be half dozing.

There is giggling.

Hannibal turns around, blinking up at the thin shadow looming over him. Will blocks out the sun and Hannibal feels cold now even within his coat. He shuts his book slowly.

“I should go kick him,” Will says, eyes narrowed, “or flick his nose. It would serve him right for keeping this from me all this time.”

“He did come around. He only needed some perspective. How do you fair?”

“How do I  _ fair _ ? This is splendid!” He holds out his arms again and sinks to his knees. He is just lower than eye level to Hannibal, and he quirks one feathered eyebrow. “You are a man who can get things done. I knew you would. I knew you would be useful the first day I laid eyes upon you.”

Hannibal does not dispute this. If anyone could see Hannibal’s purposes and uses, it would be the Godsmouth.

“Hmmm.” Will sits next to Hannibal and the girls toss petals around the two of them. “What else shall I have of you? What else can you do?”

“I don’t claim to know.”

“What about that?” He points out to the treeline.

“That?”

“Have the old man allow me there, to the woods.”

Briefly, the image of Will running off, never to be seen again, comes to him. Hannibal forces it away, considers it Satan planting doubt. “Well. I suppose that might be possible, once trust has been established.”

Will crosses his arms. “Trust? Whatever do you mean?”

“I think the High Physician would like to be assured you will not be hiding in any radishes.”

Will blinks at him, once, twice; dusty rose color comes to his neck. “How dare he gossip about me!”

“It was only in passing.”

“I don’t care. I was a child and it was  _ his  _ fault for not attending me.”

“I understand.”

“And it was  _ Mother’s _ fault for leaving me in his bumbling hands besides.” He looks off, color still rising. “She should have come. It would have been more fun.”

“Yes.”

Will glances back at him, eyebrows tented. “You do not have to agree with  _ every _ thing I say…”

“Of course.”

“I command you to dissent.”

“No.”

Will snorts laughter and it is a soft, cackling sound that seems to be particular to him whether he means mischief or not. Watching him giggling into his hands, Hannibal is instantly thrown back to his home and set in those soft moments of making Mischa laugh. She does have the most beautiful laughter, stolen straight from their mother. Hannibal has never been considered a great jester but he can always make Mischa laugh. And Chiyoh, when she is of a mind to allow it.

There are hands in his lap. Will digging into the sketch pages, opening the barely-hanging front cover to look underneath.

The first drawing is Mischa, of course. Mischa as she was before their parents’ death: fat and bubbly and too short for her age and eyes as large as souptourines. Hannibal shaded the rosiness into her cheeks.

“Who is this?” Will asks, tilting his head. He touches the page corner gently, like picking up a dirty handkerchief.

“My sister, Mischa.”

“Who drew it?”

“I, of course,” Hannibal says.

Will’s head pops up again. “You did? Are you a great artist in your village?”

“Certainly not!”

“Do not lie to me. God hears you.”

“I’m not,” Hannibal says and though he knows he isn’t lying, worry fills him nonetheless. “My family could never afford great paintings. I do what I can, to remember.”

Will dips back down, turning the page. More drawings of Mischa: running, climbing a tree, chasing down the stray dogs in the village. “You are nearly as good as the artists who come to do my bloodline’s portraits. Why, with some color, you could—” He turns the page again. “Who is this?”

“A neighbor,” Hannibal says and knows God hears the lie. His stomach curdles.

“She looks from the Eastlands, doesn’t she?”

“I suppose. At an angle.”

“So strange.”

Will continues flipping. He asks, “Who is this?” a half a dozen times and some of them  _ are _ neighbors and one is of Tournay and a few are of his parents, or how he best remembers them. Then, he comes to the final drawn page and looks up at the scenery and then back down again.

“This is me.”

“Yes, and I meant no disrespect. I simply thought—”

“I love it.”

He drops the page gently, so gently, back into place. He sits again and looks at the place where he was drawn against the sky. He says nothing; a long silence follows in which there is only the wind ruffling the feathers of his cloak. Fredericka shuffles her feet into the dirt and Hannibal had half-forgotten the girls were present. He looks down at the page for a moment before carefully pulling it from the binding.

He sets it in Will’s lap. “You may keep it, if it pleases you so.” When Will doesn’t respond, Hannibal continues: “Although, I’d be hard-pressed to say what you could do with it.”

“I could look at it everyday. I could look at it and remember this afternoon, even if the old man never allows me out again.”

“Yes,” Hannibal says after a pause. “I suppose you could.”

The excursion lasts only until the sun begins its descent from on high. Frederick complains that they will all be late for luncheon and he orders the party back inside the cathedral walls. As Hannibal falls into step with Frederick, Will and his girls up ahead, he notices the footmen and guards remaining outside the Mount. He realizes, now, that he has never seen any of them inside the walls.

“Well,” Frederick says during a yawn, “it was not so bad, after all. But don’t tell Abel — he will only agitate me over it.”

Hannibal nods. “Do you think this may become more commonplace?”

Frederick sends Hannibal a raised eyebrow. He looks ahead again at Will who, when Frederick ordered him in, did not make much of a fuss. He only turned his nose up and held his drawing close to his chest, keeping it half hidden beneath his cloak. 

Frederick says, “If you are to keep watch over him, perhaps I can catch up on my catnaps. I am woefully unrested of late, you know.”

“I know, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been following the blog, you know I'm leaving AO3. You also know that I still write tons of Hannigram. You ALSO know that this story, CTA!, has 17 chapters and is being posted voraciously with links through [here](https://fkahersweetness.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Don't panic, I'm only moving platforms. My issues with AO3 are a mile long! This user page will no longer be used/updated so if you have subs here, feel free to nix them.
> 
> See you later!


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